


Of Honor and Hemlines (Redux)

by OnstageSport



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossdressing, Crossdressing for a Cause, Dress Code, Gen, I never got dress coded so Im making this up as i go, M/M, rating is for like one swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 10:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16084067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnstageSport/pseuds/OnstageSport
Summary: When Katherine gets unfairly sent home for her completely school-appropriate outfit, she and the boys take matters into their own hands.I wrote this a year ago and decided to revisit it and make it better





	Of Honor and Hemlines (Redux)

It had all started because Katherine had been sent home the day she, Jack, and Racetrack were supposed to give a presentation in their marketing class. Because she was not their to explain her portion, their presentation and their grade suffered. When they texted to ask her state of wellbeing—because she would never willingly abandon them like that so she _must_ be dying—she said she would explain it all at Jacobi’s after school.

After school, the presentation group as well as some tagalongs—namely Davey, Spot, Crutchie, and Romeo—met Katherine at Jacobi’s diner. It took some strategic planning, but they all managed to squeeze uncomfortably into one booth.

“I got sent home because my skirt was ‘inappropriate for the learning environment’ and I was ‘unwilling to cooperate,’” she explained with an adenoidal flair, imitating the school secretary Ms. Hannah almost perfectly.

“Well, that’s messed up,” Jack noted.

“Yeah, you ain’t even dressed bad,” Race added, comically peeking under the table. 

Spot elbowed him hard in the side and they launched into a private conversation; Jack could hear the word “perv” whispered a couple times, but that was all he caught.

“That’s literally something my sister would wear to _work_ ,” Davey chimed in as he forked his salad. “Someone needs to point out that the dress code is ridiculous.”

Katherine huffed out a laugh, crossing her arms. Beside her, Romeo squeezed closer to Crutchie, nearly pushing him off the bench.

“Oh, sure Davey, because that hasn’t been done before,” she groaned, leaning against the seat-back with another haughty huff. “No one listens when we try to point out the entire thing needs to be reevaluated. They think we just want to wear…I don’t even know. Tube tops?” She rolled her eyes at the very notion. “And then there’s the whole sexism issue.”

“The sex issue?” asked Spot, not sure he heard right. The rest of the boys snickered.

“The sex _ism_ issue,” Katherine repeated with emphasis. 

“Yeah, get your mind outta the gutter,” Race teased him. He paused then, with a shyly raised hand, he asked, “What sexism issue?”

“The dress code’s sexist,” Katherine stated plainly. When she was met with six blank stares, she looked back incredulously. “Seriously? You guys have never noticed how many more rules there are for girls than for guys?”

“Isn’t that ’cause girls have more things they can wear than guys?” Crutchie asked.

“It’s fabric,” Katherine scoffed, rolling her eyes before continuing with her explanation. “But it’s always about the girl not being a disruption to her male counterpart’s education. Never mind the fact that they yank a girl out of class and potentially send her _home_ to change, which completely disrupts her education. But who cares about _her_ , right?” 

She had worked herself into a bit of a tizzy and Jack slid his glass of water over to her. She gratefully took a sip and slid it back to him.

“Sorry, I just…it just makes me sick.”

They fell into silence, no one quite sure how to respond to the rant. After several moments ticked by, Jack and Davey exchanged a look, their eyes glinting with inspiration.

“What’re you thinking?” Romeo asked, warily glancing across the table Racetrack.

“Maybe the reason that nothing changes is that they don’t really value the girl’s perspective when she’s getting written up, like you said,” Davey began.

“Or the girls in general,” Katherine supplied bitterly.

“Exactly!” Jack added, far too jovially for the subject matter. “So we were thinking—well, I don’t know about Dave but _I_ was thinking—what if the people getting written up weren’t girls?”

Another silence as the rest of them took in the information. Katherine was the first to speak.

“You mean, _you’re_ going to organize a protest wherein you lot wear dresses and skirts?” she clarified, raising a hand to her face to hide her amusement.

“And anything else specified as a girl’s infraction,” Davey confirmed.

They looked around the table for support, surprised to see that most of them were already on board. The only one showing any kind of hesitation was Crutchie. The rest were enthusiastic about the cause and helping their friend, and they started to coordinate details and spread the word. As they did so, Jack moved to sit at the corner of the table, beside Crutchie.

“Hey, something wrong?” he asked in a low voice, trying to sound as non-judgmental as possible. He didn’t want to guilt Crutchie into talking to him. “You don’t _have_ to do this, you know.”

“No, I want to,” Crutchie insisted. He hesitated before elaborating. “But…it’s my leg. I don’t want to…you know. Show it off.” He gestured vaguely to his leg.

“Nah, I get it,” Jack assured, wrapping an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “We’ll find something. I promise.”

Crutchie smiled at him in thanks and they returned to the conversation, ready to move on to the next step.

\- - -

They had planned their protest for that Friday, which gave them three days to acquire their outfits. Katherine had offered her wardrobe but couldn’t guarantee that she would have clothes that would fit all of the boys. But she could always accompany them to the nearest thrift store.

“We don’t need supervision,” Spot had scoffed as he unabashedly stripped to his boxers in the middle of her bedroom and pulled a dress over his head. “I think we can figure it out.”

Katherine hummed skeptically as the dress got stuck just past his shoulders.

“Mhm. Yeah, you look like you can handle it,” she laughed before rummaging through her closet for a different garment.

After helping Spot find a better outfit, she thanked all of them once again for their support and stepped outside to give them privacy to change. She stayed by her door in case they needed any help, and she was a little concerned about leaving them alone to rifle through her things.

By the time the boys were finished and carried off their haul, her wardrobe had a small dent in it.

\- - -

Friday came and Katherine truly had no idea how the day was going to go. She wore a blouse and skirt combination not unlike the one she had been sent home for wearing earlier that week. This was not an unusual outfit selection for her, but she was certain that it would solidify her stance with the boys and the silent protest.

They had all agreed to meet in the parking lot before school to make a big dramatic entrance together—Jack’s idea, but luckily his second suggestion of doing it in slow-motion like an action movie had not gained traction.

Katherine supposed this early meeting also served to get all their laughter about how ridiculous they looked over with so they wouldn’t disrupt their cause later in the day. And boy did they look ridiculous.

When Katherine arrived in the lot, she saw Jack Kelly leaning against his car in what she assumed he assumed was an intimidating manner, though it was undercut by his attire. He wore a light pink pleated skirt that fell to about mid-thigh on him, paired with what appeared to be his least paint-stained t-shirt, and sneakers.

Crutchie quickly got out of the car when he saw Katherine approach. True to his word, Jack had managed to help find something in Katherine’s wardrobe that would break dress code while still making sure Crutchie felt comfortable. He wore a black and white horizontally striped halter top that tied around his neck (Katherine couldn’t remember the last time she had seen that, let alone worn it) that would risk showing off a sliver of his midriff if he hadn’t paired it with a high-waisted black skirt that fell to his ankles.

“Where did you find _that_?” Katherine laughed. 

Crutchie opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by the sound of a wolf whistle. They turned to see Racetrack, Spot, Romeo, and Specs striding towards them almost completely in sync. Specs wore a light blue mini skirt with white polka dots that actually would have looked really good on him if he hadn’t paired it with a comic book t-shirt under an unbuttoned green plaid button down. Romeo wore a tight jean skirt and a dark blue button down.

Spot and Racetrack had gone all out and were wearing dresses. Race wore a low-cut black spaghetti strapped dress patterned with wine red roses. If the straps and neckline weren’t enough to get him in trouble, the boxers peeking out from beneath the hem definitely would. Spot wore a belted peach-colored dress with a white lacy overlay that was barely longer than Race’s. It was the first time in recorded history that anyone recalled Spot Conlon wearing sleeves.

“Ow ow!” Jack hollered back, grinning deviously at them.

When they all convened, Race did a head count.

“So, we’re just missing Mush, Blink, Al, and Dave, right?”

The murmured confirmations were cut short by Crutchie asking a far more pressing question.

“Spot. Did you _shave your legs_?”

The entire conversation came to a screaming halt as everyone clamored to take a look as Spot swatted them away. At some point during the commotion, Mush, Blink, and Albert had arrived unnoticed.

“Kath, you really need some variety in your wardrobe,” Albert teasingly chastised, gesturing to the nearly identical skirts the three of them wore. They were all of a ‘swishy’ fabric in pastel shades of blue, green, and orange.

“And you’re not going to comment on the seven dark blue t-shirts that you own?” she retorted with a quirk of her brow.

“Or do I have _one_ that I wear seven times a week?” Albert countered, dramatically flourishing his green skirt.

The mere thought of that being true caused the group to groan and Katherine to scrunch her nose in disgust.

“That’s gross,” she scolded him.

“I don’t know what it is, but I probably agree,” Davey panted when he finally arrived. “Sorry I’m late, I had to drop Les off.”

The rest of the boys whooped when they caught sight of what he was wearing. Davey self-consciously tugged at the hem of the light blue dress.

“I didn’t know _that_ was an option!" laughed Albert. 

"That's because it's not mine," Katherine pointed out. She looked it over appreciatively. "Sarah has good taste." 

Before anything else could be said about the dress or why they didn't raid Sarah's closet too, Spot announced that his headcount proved everyone was there.

"So it's showtime," Jack agreed.

And with that the group marched into the building, Katherine leading them in. 

\- - -

By the end of the day, only a handful of the group had been flagged—namely Spot, Jack, Race, and Davey. The rest of the group stood outside the principal's office waiting for them after the final bell. When they were finally dismissed, the gang immediately swarmed them.

"Well, apparently,” Jack huffed, “they care more about a couple of boys in dresses being ‘hazards to themselves’ than changing their ridiculous policies.”

“How are they gonna say _this_ ain’t a distraction?” Race bragged.

He twirled so that all his friends could admire how great he looked in Katherine’s dress. Used to his antics, most of the reactions were eye rolls and groans, but his ever-supportive boyfriend gave him a quick but appreciative smack on the butt. 

“They _did_ say you’re a distraction,” Crutchie pointed out, amused. “They called you in, remember?”

“But those are _extreme_ dresses,” Katherine interrupted, indicating the neckline and hems of each boy’s attire. “I would have been coded for far less.”

“Then we’re just going to heave to keep going,” Davey declared with a firm nod. This was met with some murmurs of agreement. “We’ll keep this up until we’ve made a difference.” His eyes shone with his passion for the cause as he looked around at the assembly and beside him Jack smiled watching him in action. “Kath, do you have more stuff we can borrow?” 

Katherine nodded enthusiastically.

“But it wouldn’t hurt if Sarah—” she turned her attention to the rest of the group, “or your moms or any girl you know—could supply some too? We don’t know how long this will take and I don’t have enough to give everyone clothes until it’s over. And there’s always the thrift store.”

Davey looked around at the group again, evaluating everyone’s faces. They all seemed set in determination, but just in case he offered them a way out.

“If any of you thought this was just going to be this one time and want to back down, that’s fine.” And it was. “We can do it without you.” And they could.

“Nah,” Spot answered, speaking for all of them. And even in a lace dress, he still commanded more authority than most of them could ever dream of garnering. “We’re all in this for the long haul.”

“Good,” Jack nodded at them and looked over to Katherine. “For Kath.”

“For _equality_ ,” she corrected, though her smile lingered as thanks to them all for helping out. “Now come on. _Somebody_ ’s got a little brother to pick up.”

And with that, the eleven of them made their way to the parking lot, discussing their next steps. Some of the boys already called dibs on unclaimed items in Katherine’s closet while others tried to schedule time to raid David’s sister’s.

“Well, looks like the queens got some fancy new robes,” a snide voice greeted as they exited the building into the parking lot.

None of them were impressed with the comment, but Jack was the one who took the lead and approached the Delancey brothers with the rest of the group following behind them.

“That’s real clever, Morris. You spend all day thinking of that?” he asked cockily.

Before Morris answered, Katherine stepped forward, striding confidently past Jack and placing herself between her friends and the bullies. All of the boys behind her exchanged wary glances. Surely the Delanceys wouldn’t punch a girl…right?

“Actually, they’re doing this out of solidarity with the girls in this school combatting the dress code,” she explained, almost as though she were pitching them the idea.

“Is that right?” Oscar asked, cracking his neck as he stepped up to join his brother.

That didn’t bode well and all of the other boys went on high alert, closing in behind Katherine. She heard the frantic footsteps and held out her hand to signal that they should back off. They did not move any closer but they didn’t fall back either.

“Yes,” she confirmed, making as direct eye contact with Oscar as she could. She continued carefully, deliberately choosing each word and maintaining as innocent a composure as she could manage. “If you would like to join the movement, you can always ask your mother to borrow some of her clothes.” 

The Delanceys glares darkened and Morris’s nostrils flared. Oscar’s hand curled into a fist and Katherine’s friends worried that it would escalate to violence if she wasn’t careful, unspoken rules be damned. They slowly started to approach, preparing to usher her away at a moment’s notice.

“Oh,” Katherine blinked. She tried to keep her face as non-punchable as possible and ended up feeling rather like a porcelain doll. “I’m so sorry. I forgot she left you and the miserable wretch you call a father.” Surprisingly, it was Albert and Jack who reached her first and began pulling her away from the confrontation. Still, she shouted after them, “But don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll come back once you two aren’t the most repugnant pieces of human garbage! So don’t hold your breath!”

Once they had gotten her safely to her car, Jack looked her square in the face and asked with no ounce of humor, “What the hell was that?”

She just shrugged and smiled before patting him on the shoulder and accusing them of ‘rubbing off on her.’ She thanked them all again and invited them to raid her closet any time before Monday.

“I’m proud of you,” she shouted before she drove off.

\- - -

Their protest had spread over the course of the next week while administrators tried to corral them. By Tuesday, there had to be at least twenty boys participating but at the same time, the administration was finally starting to code all of them and not just the most revealing outfits. Because of this crack down on the dress code policy, classes were getting disrupted by the very faculty meant to be keeping the ship running smoothly. 

Davey even pointed this out to them while they were writing up Finch for his plaid skirt that almost definitely once was part of a private school uniform. They paid him no mind, more concerned with staying in control of “the crossdressing situation” that was getting out of hand.

It wasn’t until a local news reporter had shown up at their school asking to speak to the organizers of the protest on Wednesday morning that shit hit the fan. Katherine, Davey, and Jack—all in dresses—agreed to meet with him and explained the situation and their cause.

“Why don’t you just keep a spare set of clothes in your locker if it’s so important?” the reporter asked Katherine when she finished.

“I shouldn’t have to be constantly worried about what my male peers find distracting,” she retorted.

“But you know that boys this age are very easily distractible, especially by girls,” the reporter said.

“Thanks frankly insulting to the boys,” she sniped. The reporter tried to talk over her but she barreled on. “First of all, it restricts boys to this ‘sex-fiend’ archetype which has its own set of issues that now’s not the time for. Like, this idea that if boys see a shoulder they’ll instantly forget how to function as a normal human, that’s just insulting.”

The reporter turned to Jack and Davey, looking for their opinion, but Katherine wasn’t done.

“And it completely discounts the boys who would be distracted by other boys, and yet not a single male student who has had his boxers on display has been told to go home and get better fitting pants.”

Now that Katherine had made her point, the reporter asked Jack and David, “You two have been awfully quiet. Tell me, what has your experience been like with the protest?”

David and Jack exchanged a glance.

“We’re just here to support Katherine,” Jack shrugged. “But we agree with everything that she said.”

“It was ignoring her voice that started this, so we’re not going to talk over her,” David added solemnly, a blatant dig at the way the reporter had been trying to skew this story.

There was a tense moment before the reporter thanked them for meeting with him and dismissed them.

They walked away, rather impressed with how it had gone and ready to face the next day of codings.

\- - -

After the interview aired, Katherine, Davey, and Jack were reasonably confident that they had backed the administration into a corner, they approached the principal with a composed list of suggested alternatives to the current rules regarding female students’ attire. They had arranged for a meeting that Friday, exactly one week from the start of their surprisingly effective protest.

When they arrived for the meeting, however, it appeared that an ambush had been set for them. Joseph Pulitzer stood beside the principal’s desk and he looked anything but pleased.

“Dad, I-”

“Katherine,” he reprimanded. “What were you _thinking_ , rocking the boat like this? I make a sizable donation to this school and your behavior is a very poor reflection of that!”

“Don’t you think your daughter has the same right to learn as the rest of us?” Jack demanded, stepping forward. 

When Pulitzer turned his gaze on him, lingering for only a second, he could see the disgust. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had encouraged this scandalous behavior of Katherine’s, or because he was a boy in one of a dress, or because it was one of Katherine’s dresses. He quickly turned his attention back to his daughter.

“This is besmirching our reputation,” he scolded her.

“Standing up for a cause and trying to make a change is ‘besmirching’ it?” she scoffed. “Were the Revolutionaries ‘besmirching’ their heritage when they fought for freedom from unfair taxation?”

The principal cut in, “You’re comparing your crossdressing crusade to the Revolutionary War?”

Even Jack had to admit that it wasn’t the strongest comparison to plead their case.

“All we’re trying to do is point out a flaw in the system,” Davey spoke up. Maybe they would take it more seriously from him. “Girls have been making complaints about the dress code for ages and no one has listened and it led to-”

“To students making fools of themselves and a mockery of this school,” the principal dictated.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures” Katherine advocated. She held out the file she had brought with her. “These are some suggestions on how to make the dress code a little more fair. We hope that this week has led you to consider them.”

She gently placed the folder on the principal’s desk with a charming smile. She glanced to her companions. That was what they had come to accomplish and they had achieved it.

“May we be excused?” she asked bravely, her eyes flickering momentarily over to her father.

“Now, hold on,” the principal held up a hand as he read through their list. “Not all of these are possible.”

The students stared at him in suspicion, waiting for the explanation of why their proposed solutions weren’t viable. When he couldn’t provide one, Jack spoke up.

“Why not? Because that’s ‘just the way it is?’” he spouted. The principal floundered for a second and after some more prodding, finally conceded.

“I will do what I can.”

“Even if just ten percent of those changes are made by next year, that would be a step in the right direction,” Katherine pushed.

“I will see what I can do.”

“That’s just Adult Speak for a whole lotta nothing,” Jack pointed out.

Increasing frustrated, the principal assured that he was going to _try_. And with that, he dismissed everyone from his office.

\- - -

The rest of the school year had been relatively quiet. A few months passed and it seemed that most of the school had actually forgotten about the protest. Sometimes one of the boys would wear a skirt or dress to shake things up, having actually grown to like it in their brief stunt, but that was the most boat-rocking that had occurred.

Katherine, David, and Jack graduated with a sense of hope and regret about the protest. They hadn’t heard anything yet and had silently resigned themselves to the reality that nothing was going to change and even if it did, they wouldn’t be there to see it.

One morning in early September, they each awoke to find a new message from Race in the group chat. It showed a picture of a page of that year’s student handbook, with the subject heading “Dress Code,” and the caption ‘ _WE DID IT!_ ’


End file.
